Trump Eyes Changes to Guest Worker Programs. EE.UU.

When
Michael Emmons found out he was losing his job as a software developer at
Siemens technology company and being replaced by a foreign worker, the last
thing he felt like doing was training his replacement.

But
Emmons had more important factors to consider than his ego. He worked in a
tough industry, and jobs were scarce. His young daughter had spina bifida, a
disease that affects spinal cord development, and required expensive surgeries.
His medical insurance bill was almost $1,000 per month.

"I
wasn't going to put her health care at risk," Emmons said. "So I did
what I had to do until I found another job." Emmons agreed to train three
replacements, each of whom learned a different aspect of his job. It took a lot
of work — one of his trainees was so inexperienced that they had to resort to a
basic "how to" manual for one of the most elementary functions of the
trade.

Emmons
had spent his own time and money to train himself on skills he needed to stand
out. Now, not only was he forced to teach someone else those skills, he was training
his replacements. "It was the most demoralizing thing I've ever been
through," he said.

The 25 to
30 replacement workers at Emmons' Orlando, Florida, workplace came from India
on L-1B and H-1B visas, just two out of approximately two dozen types of
temporary visas that U.S. employers use to hire foreign workers.

Such
guest worker visas are meant to provide a boost to the U.S. economy, especially
the tech industry, by injecting skilled laborers into highly competitive fields
to help complement the American workforce.

But
critics say the system is in need of a massive overhaul, noting that U.S.
employers regularly exploit loopholes to hire workers for lower wages, which
hurts American workers like Emmons.

Trump
signals changes

There are
signs that the system may change under President-elect Donald Trump, who made
tougher immigration policies a hallmark of his presidential campaign. In a
video Monday outlining his plans for his first 100 days in office, Trump said
he will "direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of visa
programs that undercut the American worker."

Trump
wasn't specific about what he would do if any abuses were found. But if he is
looking to satisfy many supporters of his populist policies, he could start by
making changes to the H-1B visa, the guest worker program that draws the most
criticism.

Under the
H-1B program, 85,000 workers and graduate students enter the U.S. each year, a
limit set by U.S. law. The visas can last up to six years. Sometimes the guest
workers go on to get green cards.

The goal
of the program is to bring in specialized, highly skilled employees who aren't
available in the U.S. But the problem is that many employers use the visa
simply to hire workers with ordinary skills at a lower wage, explains Ron Hira,
associate professor of public policy at Howard University.

"I'd
say that more than half the visas are used to help facilitate the offshoring of
U.S. jobs," said Hira, an expert on immigration and outsourcing. "And
certainly more than half is used for cheaper labor — probably closer to 65
percent."

Just as
concerning to Hira is that guest worker visas are tied to their employers,
creating a sort of de facto indentured servitude that allows employers the
ability to exploit foreign employees.

"Look
— Infosys, Cognizant, even IBM are not hiring H-1Bs because these are specialized
workers. It's because they're lower wage," he said.

H-1B is
very much on the radar of the people surrounding Trump.

"The
people that are really versed on immigration policy that are at the very top of
the Trump campaign and the people that are on his transition team have a very
low regard for the H-1B program," said Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA,
a Washington, D.C.-based group that works to reduce the number of emigrants to
the U.S.

If Trump
chooses to make big reforms to the temporary visa programs, he'll need the help
of Congress. And there's a good chance he'll get it, according to Beck, who
points out that the guest worker question does not fall along strictly partisan
lines.

Fixing
the problem wouldn't actually be that hard, according to Hira, who proposes the
following: Raise wage requirement levels, making it more difficult for
employers to hire cheap laborers; require employers to first recruit from U.S.
worker pools; and implement a random audit system to ensure the program isn't
being exploited.

But not
everybody would be on board with those changes.

Alex
Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the CATO Institute, says that
raising the minimum salary requirement to $100,000 a year, as some have
proposed, would dramatically shrink the program, hurting Silicon Valley and
many other industries.

"The
program has a lot of problems, a lot of things about it that need to be fixed,
but it's better than having no program at all," Nowrasteh said,
"because the contribution of skilled, migrant workers to the U.S. economy
is pretty great."

For now,
many of those currently in the U.S. on H-1Bs are on edge, wondering if any
changes could affect their visa status.

"It
is a worry, yes, as my visa will need renewed in 2018," said Alison, an
Irish citizen who works for a D.C.-based nonprofit group and who declined to
give her last name.

As for
Emmons, after training his replacements at Siemens in 2002, he went on to get a
new job — and now works as IT director for a local government office in Orlando,
Florida. Perhaps it's no surprise that he supported Trump in the presidential
election.

"We
made a lot of noise back then, but not until Donald Trump came in do we
actually feel that they're going to actually do something to help American
workers," he said. VOA’s Svetlana Cunningham contributed to this report.